


Gratitude

by eruriotica (minxiebutt)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Deception, Doctor Erwin Smith, Domestic Violence, M/M, Manipulation, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mind Games, Patient Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 13:54:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15511314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/pseuds/eruriotica
Summary: Erwin decides to exploit the gratitude of a 'hypochondriac' who is actually sick.





	Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kataki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kataki/gifts).



Erwin _almost_ doesn’t take the transfer from Nile’s office. It’s a difficult patient, an unofficial hypochondriac, comes in every week to convince Nile that he’s really sick, he’s sure of it. Erwin _almost_ closes the file and rejects the transfer, but he doesn’t. If the patient isn’t actually sick, then there’s likely a mental health disorder to blame, and psychological treatment is just as important in keeping oneself in the best shape.

He accepts the transfer, and Nile sends the referral notice to the patient’s insurance. The insurance denies it, so Nile works the system to find a way to get the referral approved, that’s how badly he wants this patient out of his hair.

;;;

But the hypochondriac is actually ill.

Erwin has an initial appointment with Levi Ackerman three days after Nile called in the favour. The chart for today’s visit shows stats on the low side of normal for an underweight twenty-five year old, but there’s a pallor that makes Erwin prod a little deeper, ordering bloodwork panels. Fatigue, lack of appetite, feelings of fullness when eating small portions, and anemia, which is unusual for a young male. He tells Levi to come back for a follow-up evaluation in two days, and Levi’s eyes widen.

“Two days?”

“Yes,” Erwin loops the stethoscope around his neck. Lungs sounded good, heart was a rapid flutter. “Will the scheduling be an issue?”

“No, no,” Levi says quietly, shaking his head. He pulls his hands together in his chest, fidgeting. “I just… Thank you. Thank you _so much._ I didn’t expect you to believe me.”

;;;

Erwin sees his fair share of shy patients, but there’s a vulnerability in Levi that begs to be exploited. He thinks of those thin fingers fidgeting. He wants to possess.

;;;

That image carries over until the day Levi will come back, and in the morning meeting, their billing clerk pulls Erwin aside to explain that Levi’s insurance has pushed back the referral.

“They’re downgrading his plan,” she says, holding the clipboard, waiting for Erwin to decide whether or not to even continue with the appointment. “He’s maxed his benefits for the fiscal year already.”

“I’ll continue to see him,” Erwin says, remembering thin fingers clasped over a heart that hummed, something so achingly desirable. “Put him down as cash payment but withhold the billing until we wrangle his insurance into cooperating.”

Levi arrives perfectly on time. Erwin catches a glimpse of him as a nurse leads him to an examination room, and he finishes up his paperwork so that he can get to Levi all the quicker.

Perched on the end of the exam table, Levi, dressed in a drab hospital gown, answers each of Erwin’s inquiries. Erwin listens to his heart and lungs again, noting the increased heart rate despite the low blood pressure. Levi’s hands are tight fists with every brush Erwin’s fingers make.

“I need to examine your abdomen, please lay back,” Erwin explains. “There was something in your panels that may indicate a deeper issue.”

Levi lays back as instructed, does everything as Erwin tells him. Erwin keeps a professional touch, but he catches the way Levi shifts and clenches fists in response.

When he’s done, Erwin washes his hands in the small sink. “Your spleen is enlarged. You’re going to need some imaging done to find out just how much it’s enlarged, and further evaluation to determine why.”

“But--” and then Levi snaps his mouth shut. He sighs out a reluctant, “I can’t pay.”

“I won’t turn you away for your inability to pay.” Erwin dares to step into Levi’s personal bubble and grasp his knee. “You’ve had these symptoms for a year. This may become fatal, if your spleen is so enlarged that a rupture is a threat. I’m going to help you get better, Levi.”

Levi bites his bottom lip and nods.

This should be the end of the exchange, but Erwin presses forward, letting his thumb rub a comforting circle into bone. Levi’s weight has been dropping steadily over the last year until it couldn’t drop any further, and Nile marked it down as self-sabotage. “I’m sorry that no one believed you, Levi. But you were right. You are sick. Don’t worry about paying, just worry about getting better.”

Tonight, when Erwin will decide that he wants to be unprofessional with Levi, he’ll remember the way Levi’s lip popped out from between his teeth as he said, “Yes, sir.”

;;;

It takes little digging for Erwin to have all the information he needs to set the snare into motion. Levi’s already grateful that Erwin believed him when he said he was sick. It’ll take hardly anything at all to toy with him further.

;;;

After a month, Erwin says that he finds no reason for Levi’s spleen to be as large as it is, so he offers a splenectomy after he thoroughly explains all the risks and lifestyle changes that would come after such a _necessary_ operation. Levi will need to guard closely against infections, and he’ll be more susceptible to them. Antibiotics will become his most intimate friend for two years, and possibly the rest of his life.

Levi opts for it, bringing himself one step further into Erwin’s snare.

The operation is a success. Levi begins treatment for a delicate life. Erwin fights with his insurance through mountains of paperwork to get his surgery covered as a life-saving emergency, and when that proves successful, Erwin suggests that Nile resume as his GP.

“Why?” Levi asks. He’s three months post-op and gaining back the weight he lost. It’s been so gradual to Erwin’s eye, he’s seen Levi every week, that he forgets how thin the noirette used to be until he flips back through his medical record.

Why, Erwin shows Levi, is because he wants to take him to dinner. And he does, Levi giving in with no resistance. Dinner becomes dating becomes fucking, and even though Erwin loves how softly Levi twists and moans for him, he wants to possess and own and _control_. Levi is tangling himself up in the snare so beautifully. He will be dependent on medicine and close medical supervision for the rest of his life, and his insurance refuses to cover more than two month’s worth of care every year. When Nile drops him, Erwin takes him on as patient unofficially, treating Levi afterhours and off the record. The first sweet tendrils of control like cotton candy between his fingers.

Erwin can become the key to his survival. Erwin has the means to welcome such dependency. He can meet those building skyscrapers of need.

Levi gets sick so suddenly one day, and in the ER, holding Levi’s hand and kissing the palm, Erwin makes a gentle offer, something he makes Levi believe is born of love and concern. So Levi moves in.

;;;

Under Erwin’s care completely, Levi bounces back. He stabilises.

So Erwin exercises the control and knocks Levi down. His susceptibility to infections coupled with the recent ER trip drives him to isolate, and Erwin encourages that measure. If Levi doesn’t encounter new foreign bodies, then he won’t get sick. If Levi stays home, and allows Erwin to take care of him because Erwin loves him, then Levi will be safe.

Safe is subjective.

;;;

The bruises will be the hardest thing to hide. Levi bleeds more easily now, but Erwin can’t hold back when the promise of little galaxies in Levi’s skin requires the work of his hands.

Wiping swollen skin clean, mending oozing blisters, Erwin doesn’t explain himself, and Levi takes the blame, filling the silence between them with the reasons he knows he deserved this.

The primary reason, Levi settles, is because he costs Erwin so much, in time, effort, and money, but gives back so little.

Still, Erwin keeps silent, and kisses Levi’s forehead. Truthfully, there’s no reason for this, no reason other than the sake of it. Levi does nothing wrong. Erwin simply wants and takes what he wants. He never outgrew that childhood curiosity for torturing small, pathetic, helpless things, and Levi is just another of his small, pathetic, helpless things.

;;;

Erwin gives Levi the recommended booster vaccinations, and Levi’s body struggles to process them, something Erwin genuinely does not expect. This is an unexpected level of frailty, but it gives him an opportunity to experiment in ways that he hasn’t been able to do freely since medical school.

Under the guise of panels, Erwin empties Levi of a pint of blood. Levi submits willingly, because, after all, Erwin was the only one who believed that he was sick, and he trusts Erwin without hesitation. In a healthy donor, that would not cause the malaffects that blossom within Levi immediately. The persistent anemia heightens. Levi goes to bed most nights before he can even finish his dinner. He stays in bed long after Erwin has left for work.

And he bruises so divinely. Erwin has only to press his fingertips in until he can feel the soft layer of fat, and Levi gives him a garden. The violets and pansies that bloom in Levi’s pale skin fill Erwin’s brain with pleasure. If he were a weaker man, he would say that he could become addicted to this.

;;;

Erwin fills their bed with pillows, and often, sinks Levi down into them, bending him in half with his knees in his heaving chest. Slipping a gentle hand around Levi’s throat, Erwin flirts with his blood flow, and Levi’s eyes roll back when he cums all over his abdomen.

It bruises, too, from the barest press of fingers now. And it should be a worry to Levi, but Erwin explains it away with reassurance and kisses. Not only does he wear hues of blue around his neck, but also the backs of his thighs where Erwin’s body met him.

When he’s had his fill of this fun, Erwin prescribes a dietary change and a medication.

;;;

As the ease of bruising recedes, Erwin chases those violets, pansies, and galaxies with force. He hasn’t hit Levi since that first time, since he promised sweetly that it wouldn’t happen again, and the dumbstruck expression on Levi’s red, backhanded face makes the wait worthwhile.

It takes almost nothing for Erwin to drill the fault into Levi’s head. Levi shouldn’t go outside without Erwin, he’s too susceptible to infections and Erwin loves him so much, Erwin does not want to see him get sick again. Doesn’t Levi appreciate all the care Erwin puts into him to keep him healthy? Is Levi so ungrateful that he would risk it?

Erwin chases Levi’s watery apology with gentle kisses that melt into lovemaking that makes Levi cry. He licks up those hard earned tears.

Even though Erwin plays with Levi like a cat pawing a broken-winged bird, Levi turns up heart-shaped eyes and soft smiles to Erwin, offers up his frail body to Erwin’s gentle and not-so-gentle affections, submits himself to Erwin’s medical opinions and prescriptions. He is a beautiful thing caged by his gratitude and wondrously exploited.

Erwin looks forward to the years that await them because even though Levi is weak beneath him, Erwin knows how to keep him alive.

**Author's Note:**

> für kleiner sweetling


End file.
